


Screaming

by quicksilverdeancas (quicksilvermalec)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Boys In Love, Canon Compliant thru S8, Canon Divergent, Castiel in the Bunker, Grief, Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Mourning, Mutual Pining, Other, Pining, en jo y?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24975238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksilvermalec/pseuds/quicksilverdeancas
Summary: Sam is screaming.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel & Sam Winchester, Castiel/Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester & Dean Winchester, past Castiel/Dean Winchester - Relationship
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	Screaming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kj_graham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kj_graham/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Mirror](https://archiveofourown.org/works/311092) by [cloudyjenn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudyjenn/pseuds/cloudyjenn). 



Dean falls to the ground.

Even from here, Sam can see that there’s no light in his eyes. Someone is screaming. Cas has his arms wrapped around Sam’s chest, holding him back. Sam can’t run to him. He wants to run to him. He needs to save his brother. Someone is screaming.

Sam’s throat hurts.

Sam’s throat hurts…

Sam pauses to rub unhelpfully at his neck and the screaming stops.

Oh.

 _Sam_ was screaming.

That makes sense.

~~

Cas walks through the halls of the Bunker. He is like a specter now, a ghost. He’s hollow. He’s empty. He’s not Cas. Sam is still screaming, but not so loudly. Cas will never be Cas again, it seems. Sam knows how he loved Dean. Cas knows how Sam loved Dean. They know that they will both love Dean above everything else, even now, after Dean has left the earth.

Sam found Cas outside the other day, kneeling in the gravel, palms upturned to the sky. He was begging the other angels to bring him back. His face was grimy and dirty, stained with grief, painted in sorrow, and polished with unshed tears. He is desperate. He implores the dead-eyed, uncaring statues to return to him a man they never wanted to live in the first place.

They tell him no.

They tell him no exactly once, and then the sky is clear and empty and utterly silent.

Sam had to drag him back inside and force him to eat something.

Dean is still there; his presence haunts their residence more than anything they’ve ever had to kill.

Sam is still screaming in his nightmares.

~~

Dean is still there.

Dean is _there_ , in so many ways. He’s there in the way the door to the liquor cabinet still creaks a little, and now it sounds like Dean’s voice, complaining about how he needs to get that fixed. He’s there in the way Sam drudges his way into the kitchen at eleven am every day to fix two bowls of cereal because he knows no one will ever make killer pancakes in this kitchen again. Dean is there in Sam’s screams. He’s in Sam’s nightmares, always shaking him, telling him he needs to wake up. He’s there in the deep, dark paint on the thick metal exterior of his beloved car. He’s there in her dash, too, in the trunk, in the glove box. He’s there in the dark silence between them, in the four extra inches of space they keep between their bodies now, as if they need to leave more room for Dean. For Dean, who Sam has to keep reminding himself is _dead_. Not off on a hunt. Not taking the Impala out for a grocery run. Dean is dead and buried, in a grave in the backyard. And they both know they should have burned him. But Sam can’t help thinking… the last time Dean died, he fought his way out of his own coffin. Sam can’t help but hope that maybe this time, he’ll find his way back, he’ll rise and live again.

Dean is there in the heavy shadow that hangs over the both of them, driving them to madness.

Sam hates that Dean is still there. Sam hates that he hates it.

~~

Castiel slowly but surely starts to get better. Sam had been so terrified he’d lose his mind from grief, the relief he feels when Cas starts to speak to him again is damn near overwhelming.

The first time Cas opens his mouth again, he asks Sam what they’re going to eat for dinner. Sam almost crashes the Impala into a tree. But then he turns to Cas, smiles, and asks what he wants.

That night, Cas follows Sam into his room, and they sit on Sam’s bed in their pajamas and talk about Dean until after midnight. They cry together, they allow themselves to be ~~weak~~ vulnerable. And they talk themselves hoarse about all the reasons they loved Dean Winchester.

Cas tells Sam what Dean’s soul looked like, at least converted into terms humans can understand. Sam tells Cas about their childhood, about growing up together. They talk about the things he did for people. They talk about how passionately angrily possessive and protective he was. They talk about knowing every day that he would – and has – gone to war for either of them. They talk about not always trusting him, but feeling safe with him anyway.

They talk together for a long, long time, and they fall asleep in Sam’s bed, holding each other like small children, seeking and finding comfort in their friends’ arms.

~~

There’s something to be said for having a routine, and this one at the very least makes it a little more bearable. They start to talk every night. At first it’s always about Dean, often about missing him – Sam misses the bastard more every day, misses him so goddamn much his chest aches with the constant, unending burden of it – and about the guilt they feel over allowing him to die. But as the weeks, then months pass, they manage to start to talk about other things.

Dean is still there with them. He’s just… less present. Sam thinks maybe he would want that.

Dean wouldn’t want them to hold on forever. Dean was not a patient man, but he was a loving one, and he loved Sam and Cas with a fire few others could claim. He would want them to seek solace in each other, to grow and to heal and to eventually learn to let go. Sam will believe that with every fiber of his being until Dean rises from his grave to tell him otherwise.

Dean is still there. Sam is still screaming. But the presence is less powerful now, and the screaming doesn’t hurt so much anymore.

~~

The day Sam realizes it is one of the worst days of his life; up there with every other day he’s seen his brother die.

He’s in a room with Cas, attempting to research a case – they do still hunt now, despite how horribly, awfully miserable they both are – and Cas finds something in a book. He smiles wide at his friend and pushes it over to him, and Sam puts his head next to Cas’s to read with him. Cas shouts victoriously and makes a happy face that positively _exudes_ joy, which he hasn’t done in seven months, since the day before Dean died.

(Sam remembers that last moment so clearly, too. The three of them, all drinking together, and Cas had lifted his glass with a giddy smile and declared a toast to Team Free Will, and Dean had shouted his approval and Sam had cheered and they had all been, briefly, nothing more than a group of friends, happy and _together_ as they consumed as much alcohol as they could fit in their bodies.

Fourteen hours later, Dean had a bullet in his brain. Fourteen hours later, their world was ripped apart.)

But just now, Cas looks happy again, and Sam watches him and feels as though he could fly, because _he made Cas look happy_ , and he thinks, ‘I love you.’

For twenty-three seconds, being in love with Castiel is the greatest feeling in the world.

And then he remembers Dean.

Dean, his brother, whom Castiel loved. Whom Castiel _loves_ , even now, seven months after his death. Dean, his brother, who loved Castiel, who fought Heaven and Hell for Castiel. Dean, his brother, whom Sam is betraying by loving Castiel the way he does.

Sam retreats, shoves his feelings down, forces them to disappear to some hidden corner of himself. He swears on everything that exists that he’ll never desecrate his brother’s memory that way.

~~

Dean’s been gone a year, and Cas is still not okay. He’ll never be okay, Sam thinks, but neither will Sam, so they’re brokenly matched that way. Sam’s mind still screams at him, and the screams are twofold now that he realizes how he loves his friend.

Sam is selfish. He faces it, now, in his silent moments when he’s all alone. Sam is selfish and bitter and malcontent and he knows nothing will ever be good enough again. Not when everything he’s ever wanted is wrapped into one package and placed in front of him, not when he _knows_ what he can never have.

No one else will do for Sam what Cas can do.

And no one else will ever be able to be Dean.

Sam has to hold on. If not for himself, at least for Cas. Cas is getting better now, and Sam knows, deep down, that if Cas lost both of them within a year of each other, he would shatter. Sam is the only thing that kept Cas clinging to life and sanity, and if Sam were gone, Cas would be off the deep end.

So Sam hangs on. For Cas. For his best friend.

~~

Cas is the one who approaches him, in the end. Cas is the one who confesses. He tells Sam how much he is loved, how much Cas appreciates him, and Sam breaks down. He spills everything, he admits that he’s known he loved Cas for almost eight months at this point, that he could never say anything because it’s like giving up a part of himself, the part of him that is so inextricably linked to Dean. Because it’s like betraying his oldest, dearest, most precious companion. His brother. His blood, his family.

But Cas pulls him close and whispers sweet, insignificant words in his ear, and Sam feels loved. Sam feels comforted. For once, Sam feels as though he does not need to be afraid.

The only time that Sam isn’t miserable is when he’s with Cas. Selfishly, but necessarily, he decides he must always be with Cas.

Sam is still screaming.

But they press on.


End file.
